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How do I get information off a hard drive? Answered

We have several computers in our house and our oldest laptop just conked out. We knew it would happen some time, and it did. The laptop itself doesn't have a screen, (long story) so we've been plugging it into an external monitor via VGA cable. Recently, the laptop stopped working with the monitor (there was no output signal), and even after trying several other monitors and cables, it didn't work. We're pretty sure this is due to the video card, and we don't want to repair it because it simply wouldn't be worth it. However, there is important information and files on the hard drive that we need to access. We want to transfer those files to our new computer, but we need a way of doing that. We're pretty sure that the hard drive is fine and in full working order. We also can't use link cables because we cannot install the necessary software to use them. We were thinking of putting the hard drive in an external hard drive case to access the files, but would that even work? Also, what would it appear on the computer as once plugged in? Would it be just like a flash drive?

6 Replies

There are two ways of doing this the first is to do what you thought of and put the laptop drive in an external USB enclosure. These enclosures are sold for making your own external hard drive. They usually run about 30 bucks. The other option is plugging the laptop drive directly into your computer internally. If your hard drive is one of the older parallel types, which it probably is, then you need to get a special little adapter that lets you plug the mini parallel int the larger parallel that is in your computer. If your laptop drive is one of the newer serial types then you can plug it into the computer directly without any adapter. This is because the serial laptop drives use the same size connector as the desktop drives. Also bear in mind that if you get an external enclosure you can use the laptop hard drive as an external hard drive even once you have gotten your data off. Finally if you get an external USB enclosure make sure that it is the right type for your laptop drive.

Anyway I hope that this helps. If you have any more questions just ask and I will try to answer.